Monthly Archives: October 2008

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We know her name is Doris, rare for anyone walking the earth these days.
Someone made a Wikipedia page for her (linked here) that notes she was born on … that’s just impolite … attended Providence … A former all-Big East basketball player who blew out her knee in 1987 and stayed on as an assistant coach … her husband is the Rhode Island athletic department.

And because she has no baby issues, she’ll replace Michele Tafoya as a sideline reporter on the NBA games show on ABC this season.

Michele said the workload of the NBA, along with the NFL and the weekly pops on ESPN Radio, gave her little time for her family in Minnesota. So she’s backing away.

Burke, meanwhile, is only adding to her workload. She’ll also continue doing games for some ESPN NBA telecasts. She’ll also keep doing analysis for some ESPN men’s college games. And the WNBA. And the women’s basketball stuff. …

We barely have room in our cerebral cortext for the content of baseball, football, hockey and pro rodeo. Throw in basketball, it’s circular overload.

Especially the colleges, the one sports where it seems not only every single game is televised by someone, but every school seems to have a team. Three-hundred plus, right? That would mean there’s about … 3,600 cheerleaders across the D-I landscape? Conservatively…

We can’t begin to decipher the latest schedule released by FSN of its college basketball bombardment, so we’ll simply cut and paste below and allow you to sift through it.

Although we can pick out:

Sunday, Jan. 11, 7:30 p.m., USC vs. UCLA. at the Galen Center
The rematch on Weds., Feb. 12 at UCLA at 7:30 p.m. is scheduled for only a FSN Prime Ticket telecast.

Remember when this contest last year was the really hot ticket? Something about those Love and Mayo kids.

The ball is up …. and we haven’t changed a delicious word of the press release so you’ll have some understanding of what we have to do on our end before it filters out to everyone else with a keen interest in this kind of thing:

NBA.com has put in a new mechanism into place for drawing more fans to its NBA TV coverage of games each Tuesday night — let the viewers investing their time in the game pick which one they’ll see.

It makes far too much sense.

The promotion was mentioned on today’s TNT coverage of the Boston-Cleveland opener, sending folks to the NBA “Fan Night” website (linked here) and vote now for a game that will air on Election Night, Tues., Nov. 4, at 4:30 p.m.:

==Boston at Houston (which some think is a preview to the NBA Finals)
==Phoenix at New Jersey
==Dallas at San Antonio

Voting so far has Boston-Houston with a commanding lead. Voting goes through Wednesday and the winner is announced Wednesday night on NBA TV. To watch the game, of course, you need the channel, which is run by Turner Sports.

The start of the NBA season can be gauged on how magazines try to use Kobe Bryant to sell their wares.

(Or, even teammed up with A-Rod, Michael Phelps and Tony Hawk to sell a video guitar game that makes everyone an instant hero).

We found easily three top publications — regular ones, not special NBA preview guides — that have Kobe in a different light heading into tonight’s TNT coverage (exclusive) of the Lakers’ home opener against Portland (7:30 p.m., unless the Celtics’ game ahead of it runs long).

1. Slam: Kobe As Political Pop Art

This dynamic, bold cover easily catches the eye with the artwork of Stephen Goggi — not just of Kobe, but also of Greg Oden, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Kevin Garnett (all linked here).
According to the note in the December, 2008 issue (yes, it’s only October when it came out), executive editor Lang Whitaker wanted a spin off from the Barack Obama campaign poster “as our inspiration” for a cover. Those “Hope” ads that are posted guerilla style all over the place are very inspiring — and extremely hard to find as well. Art director Goggi created the five as collectable covers, with the help of creative director Melissa Brennan. Whitaker notes that Slam subscribers have been mailed the Kobe cover, while newsstands across the country have the other of regional interest. Those interested in getting all five can find information on the magazine website (linked here).
But let’s give credit where it’s due.
Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey created the “Hope” Obama poster, and then was commissioned by Upper Deck to do a Kobe version (which we blogged about back in July, linked here).

I wish they all could be California teams.
But they aren’t.
San Diego has a bye this week after its smashing success in England, and Oakland is playing host to Atlanta, which gives it to the Fox people to put on your TV this weekend, but that network is far too enamored with the Cowboys playing at the Giants.
So every game you watch this weekend on “regular” TV will be with an East Coast kickoffs.
(OK, sorry, but Tennessee is Central time, only two hours head).
Still, how regional is that to your interest?
The Titans must be special, having not lost a game so far. Or did they lose yet? We watched the World Series rain delay last night and paid no attention to the football thing, even after Joe Buck came on and said the game had been suspended.
We wanted that re-run of “Malcolm in the Middle” to resume as fast as possible.

== 10 a.m., Channel 11: Green Bay at Tennessee (with Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa). Fox also has a warmed-over Detroit-Chicago, Tampa Bay-Kansas City and Arizona-St. Louis that it has decided to pass over, with your approval.

== 1 p.m., Channel 11: Dallas at N.Y. Giants (with, as of today, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver on the call). If the World Series runs into November, Buck will probably stay with it — probably? as if that’s an option? — and Fox would have to find someone else to step in … maybe Pat Summerall? Fox’s plan is to finish Game 5 on Wednesday, the pick up potential Games 6 and 7 on Thursday and Friday. As for the NFL, Fox also has Atlanta-Oakland and Philadelphia-Seattle in this window. CBS could have decided on Miami-Denver here as its only game in L.A. this weekend, but it passed.

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